Ahhh.....

We went from sweltering, 105+ degree days, to fall-is-practically-here weather seemingly overnight. Remember this post? Yeah, well.... Not even kidding, two days after I posted this, it rained and cooled off, and it's been in the mid-80s pretty much every day since then. It's amazing! The weather is perfect! When I step outside, I still find myself holding my breath, waiting for that suck-the-life-out-of-you blast of heat, but then..... AHHHH. It's just gorgeous. (Have I said it enough? Do you believe me yet?)

So of course, I've been kicking the boys outside to run, play, and all those things that they couldn't do for a month when I kept them cloistered inside to avoid a heat stroke.

And what have I been doing? SPRING CLEANING!

Seriously. It's the same concept. I've been stuck in the house all summer (okay, a month), and things have been grating at me. I'm doing small projects here and there. De-cluttering. Rearranging. Centering a picture on the dining room wall that I've had hung off-center for well over a year now (Not my fault - the stud was off center!). Working on converting the dining room into the school room.

That last project is a tough one for me. We're planning on home-schooling (starting with preschool this fall), and we don't have a separate room to use just for school. So we're going to do it in the room that makes sense: the dining room. I'm trying to make it functional for school, but I still want it to look like a dining room (pretty). I think one wall will be "schoolroom" and the rest will stay the way it is (for now). I've got a set of shelves with Nathan's preschool books, our Children's Britannica set, and markers, crayons, etc, on them. We mounted a chalkboard on the door. I've got a world map I'd like to hang up, but it's too wide for any wall except the one holding a picture I love (the one that's been off center for over a year, that's not any more :) ). So I'm trying to figure out what to do. But I really want to get the map hung up, because......

My little sister moved to Africa! She left August 1 to join the Peace Corps for a two-year assignment in Zambia. She'll be setting up and teaching the natives how to operate fish farms. So Nathan is suddenly very interested in Africa, and where it is. I think he's just starting to grasp the idea of distances. When I show him a map of Africa, he asks, "And where are we live?"

Seriously, I'm going to miss Carlsie. She's lived several hours away from home for 6 years now, but it's one thing to be a couple hours away - another to be a couple days away. The plane ride from New York to South Africa was 15 hours. She is frustrated with the complete lack of organization and initiative of what she's seen of the Peace Corps so far. It sounds like a lot of people use it as a government-sponsored vacation. (And we wonder why our country is so grossly in debt???)

My crafty projects are kind of on hold..... I'm not exactly positive what color I want to paint the coffee tables. (Yes tableS. There are two now.) I spray painted my tacky brass lamp, and I L-O-V-E how it turned out, but I'm trying to find the perfect lampshade. I just am not willing to part with $25 for something I don't love. (I may custom-cover a lamp shade, but I want to make sure that I can't buy one for the same price I spend of fabric and materials..... I just need to get up to the city for some shopping. Sometime.....)

In other news, since I'm actually posting......

Jacob is has so many words now! They aren't perfect, but they are recognizable. He uses "d" and "b" sounds to start most of his words (dat for cat, dlock for clock, etc), but we're getting there. I think he's really enjoying that we can understand him more and more.

Nathan started violin lessons a couple months ago. Did I mention that? He is still so very young (not 4 yet), and I have no need for him to be viewed as a child prodigy, so we aren't pushing it a lot. (I want him to enjoy playing the violin, not be some little performing robot.) Paul and I are giving him lessons ourselves, and we have three different areas we focus on: posture (holding the violin), rhythm (imitating a rhythm we clap), and theory (flashcards). We probably only spend 10 or 15 minutes on it, and may not do all three things. We want to keep it enjoyable. We've already had several fights about it. The protests were all because of "Mommy says I have to do this, therefore I WILL NOT do it!!"

Anyhow. I've got 4 pounds of beef jerky to take care of, and another 5 to make, so..... I'd better get on it. Not to mention that pile of laundry..... Bleh.